It may still feel like weeks (or even months) away, but the festive season is just around the corner. And there’s no time like the present to start making plans.
Here are our top tips to get your Christmas card printing right.
1. create custom christmas cards that reflect your personality
christmas card design
The image on your Christmas cards says a lot about your personal style or corporate brand. A family portrait is a popular choice for personal Christmas cards and can be anything from a formal photoshoot to a snap that captures a memory or event from the past year. Original artwork by children or adults is also easily turned into greeting cards.
Company Christmas cards should complement your brand personality. This card still makes us smile. It was printed for a fun-loving IT security company a few years back and depicts computer bugs getting into the Christmas spirit.
Every year, we print Christmas cards for many of the Oxford Colleges. These have a range of image styles – from photographs of snowy quads to stained glass and religious artifacts – as well as original illutrations and watercolours by Holywell’s resident illustrator, Grace.
christmas card production
Once you’ve chosen your image, there are a few more important considerations: What’s the best size for a Christmas card? What paper should a Christmas card be printed on? What greeting should it carry?
Sticking to a standard size, such as A6 or A5, will keep production costs down – and make sourcing envelopes easier – but it may not deliver the ‘Wow!’ factor you’re after, or make the most of your Christmas card design. Anything is possible, and we can source envelopes in a range of shapes and sizes or create custom-made envelopes for your cards.
With an estimated one billion Christmas cards sent each year in the UK, it makes sense to choose paper and print finishes with the environment in mind. 100% recycled board is a popular choice for greeting cards, and using Carbon Captured Paper funds the planting of native UK trees by The Woodland Trust. By printing the Carbon Captured Paper logo on the back of your card, along with a reminder to recycle after use, you’ll let recipients know that you’ve taken a sustainable approach to Christmas card printing.
A simple typed message inside your printed Christmas cards will convey season’s greetings and other useful information, such as when your business will be closed over the festive period. Where it’s not practical to handwrite or sign every card, signatures can also be printed inside.
2. support good causes with your christmas cards
Around £50 million a year is raised for good causes from the sale of charity Christmas cards in the UK. But often only a tiny fraction of the price paid for cards bought from high street retailers ends up in the hands of the charities they support.
Holywell Press is a Corporate Sponsor of Edge Housing, an Oxford-based homeless charity that provides safe homes, support, and a future for the city’s homeless and vulnerable. Customers ordering Christmas cards are invited to include an imprint statement on their Christmas cards to acknowledge support for the charity, in return for a donation of £10 or more.
3. make sure your christmas cards arrive in good time
when’s the best time to send christmas cards?
December is always a busy month, with end-of-term events, parties, and festive celebrations. It’s also a short work month thanks to the Christmas and the New Year bank holidays, and many people choosing to take extended holidays around the festive period. If you want to guarantee your company's Christmas cards are received before recipients switch off for the year, it’s best to post to UK addresses during the first week of December.
If you’re planning to send Christmas cards internationally, give yourself more time. For most international destinations, your cards should be in the mail by the first week of December to guarantee arrival by the 25th. But remember, the people you're sending them to may well have stopped working by then, so mid-November is probably a more realistic goal.
when’s the best time to print christmas cards?
It really depends on whether you have a design ready to go or if you’d like help with an original Christmas card design. At the very latest, we’d recommend that you have your Christmas card production underway by mid-November.
Get in touch to see samples and get inspiration from our library of recently printed Christmas cards. For a free, no-obligation quote for Christmas cards, calendars, diaries, planners, and other seasonal printing, call 01865 242098 or contact us using the button below.